The PSP returned to the city of Chicago
for their third tournament in 2008, as has been done for time immemorial.
Chicago has been the center event for the series since before there was
a PSP, and before there was an NPPL, Inc., back to the days when the original
NPPL was owned by its professional 10-man teams and contracted with separate
independent producers for each tournament.

The Chicago Open has always had the
privilege to secure the largest number of players, with the exception of
the World Cup, held at the end of the year. Founded by its original
producer, Rennick Miller, owner of the professional team Aftershock, the
tournament's central location, east to west, close proximity to two major
airports and a varied and occasionally wild nightlife, make Chicago a team
favorite.

Certainly the venue was not the same
as the old timers would remember. Memories of poison ivy, ticks,
incredible woods and of course, the ever present humid heat, at the old
Badlandz fields outside of Chicago, along with the, in its time, revolutionary
baseball diamond and later zipper hyperball fields. This year the
series arrived at the Bolingbrook Recreation and Aquatic Center for the
fourth year running.

Starting on Wednesday, the D1, 2 and
3 teams hit the field early alongside the NXL vying for their wins on the
X-Ball field. The event plan would have these same teams playing
on Wednesday and Thursday, then on Friday the 5 man teams would begin their
games, with finals being played on Sunday in addition to the third annual
NXL All-Star game.

Wednesday games played under the intense
summer heat that is common to Chicago with high humidity and temperatures
in the upper 80's, which often brings on either quickly passing rainshowers
or builds to summer heat storms with lightning and thunder. The D1,
2 and 3 teams all got half of their preliminary round games finished during
the day while the NXL battled it out on their field. First up for
the pros was Boston Red Legion and St Louis Avalanche. Boston took
the win with an 8-5 victory. Oakland Infamous beat up Chicago Aftershock
on their home turf for a 9-2 win. Then Tampa Bay took on X-Factor
with a single point victory of 9-8. The Los Angeles Ironmen beat
Aftermath with a point at 8-7, and Dynasty did the same to Impact, with
the same score. The afternoon games for the NXL proceeded with Philadelphia
Americans taking on the Naughty Dogs, ending in a 9-2 victory for Philly.
Tampa Bay continued their winning streak, taking down Boston with 9-3 win.
Oakland, likewise continued winning throughout the day with a 7-6 score
over Aftermath, delivering the second loss to Aftermath for the day.
X-Factor came out from behind their first loss to beat Avalanche by a point
9-8 and Chicago dropped their second match to the Ironmen 5-9.

Thursday's NXL competition saw Boston
taken down by Impact with a 9-5 score. Oakland Infamous beat the
Seattle Naughty Dogs 8-6, then X-Factor took down last event's winner,
Dynasty with a 9-3 win. Los Angeles Ironmen lost their match against
Philly Americans 6-7 and Avalanche took down Tampa Bay 9-4. The afternoon
saw temperatures in the upper 80's with Chicago Aftershock dropping
to Aftermath 6-8. Dynasty dropped their second game of the day to
Boston Red Legion with a 9-4 score going to the Russian based team.
Philly dropped their first game of the event to Oakland with a 7-6 score
going to the guys from Cali. Impact took their game against X-Factor
with an 8-7 final score. Ending the day was Los Angeles Ironmen game beating
the Seattle Naughty Dogs 8-4.

Thursday also saw the completion of
the preliminary rounds for the X-Ball teams. With 8 D1 teams, 34
D2 teams and 58 D3 teams, the refs and players had had a busy first two
days of the tournament.

The 2008 PSP rules of play state that
when there are 21 to 34 teams in a division, the top 12 teams advance from
the preliminary round to quarterfinals. If the division consists of 35-42
teams, the top 16 teams advance out of prelims, with the top 8 teams going
directly to the quarterfinals while the 9th through the 16th go to an Ochofinal
round for four head to head matches.

Although the Chicago D2 bracket had
only 34 teams, games were scheduled as if there were 35, sending 8 teams
to the Ochofinal round and 8 to the quarterfinal.

The D3, with their 58 teams, moved the
top 24 teams directly into the Ocho round and would seed out the top 12
teams from the ochos into the quarterfinals.

Friday morning began the preliminary
round for the 5 man competition as well. D3 and D4 five man fielded
34 and 75 teams respectively bringing the total number of teams,
not counting the closed circuit NXL to 209 teams as compared to 138 in
South Carolina and 122 in Arizona, Chicago proved itself once again as
a great team draw.

On Friday the D2 Ocho final teams played
out their matches in the hopes of continuing on to play on Saturday.
Air Assault Factory beat New Jersey Jesters 6-5. Team Zone beat Team
RNT 7-5. Project Mayhem took down East Coast Killers 6-3, and Guerrilla
Air Factory took down G.S.E. 5-4 to secure their place in the D2 Quarters.

5 Man competition ran throughout the
day on Friday with about half the teams finishing their games. Play
would continue for the other half of the teams scheduled to do their prelim
matches on Saturday morning.

Friday's NXL games saw Avalanche dropping
to Impact with an 8-4 victory to the Canadians. Seattle Naughty Dogs
beat Chicago Aftershock 9-6, then Dynasty took town Tampa Bay 9-6.
Aftermath beat Philly by a point 9-8, and X-Factor beat Boston 9-5.
In the afternoon, under cloudy and occasionally rainy skies, LA beat Oakland
9-2, then Tampa Bay continued their wins over Impact 9-6. Aftermath
took out the Dogs 8-7, Dynasty beat Avalanche 9-6 and Philly soundly won
over Chicago with a final score of 9-1. This would send LA, Oakland,
Tampa Bay, X-Factor, Dynasty and Aftermath into the Playoff Round for the
NXL on Saturday.

Saturday, the weather for the Chicago
Open was ready to provide relief to refs, players and fans a like with
high 70's forecasted and little to no rain expected to fall, though high
winds were expected throughout the day on Saturday and into Sunday.

Of the 24 D3 X-Ball teams who played
in the Ocho final round, just 12 would advance to the quarter final divisions.
The Quarters also saw the top 8 of the D2 teams who were able to bypass
the Ocho round, bringing the total participants up to 12. For both
divisions, quarterfinals involved dividing the teams into four groups of
three where each team played the other two in its group. After two games
each, the top team from each group was selected to move on to the semifinals,
with the strongest team (ranked by score) matched against the weakest.

The semifinal rounds saw D1 teams Vicious
against Damage D1 and RNT Allstarz against TX Justice League. In
D2, Fierce took the top rank, which pitted them against Raiden, and Warped
Army would face Cross-Eyed Paintball. For D3, the semifinalists were top
seated Chicago Wise Guys up against Velocity Wrecking Crew and Fierce Heat
playing DSSP8NTBALL.COM.

Second round of games for the NXL wrapped
up with two games for each of the 6 teams. Los Angeles lost to Tampa
Bay 9-8, X-Factor lost to Dynasty 8-6, Tampa Bay won their second game
over Oakland, 9-2. Aftermath beat Dynasty 7-5, then LA came back
to win their second game, giving Oakland their second loss 9-5. Then
X-Factor won over Aftermath 7-6.

Saturday held the showdown for the NXL
as Sunday would play host to the All-Star match for the NXL players.
Tampa Bay Damage went head to head with San Diego Aftermath, the top of
performer from each division, with a 5-3 win going to Damage for the Chicago
win, a great victory for newcomers of the series.

X-Ball semi final teams saw D1 Vicious
taking on Damage D1 with a 6-4 win, then RNT Allstarz beat out TX Justice
League with a decided 7-0 victory. D2 teams saw Raiden take on Fierce
for a 5-3 win, then Cross-Eyed Paintball won with a point over Warped Army
for a 4-3 score. D3 had Fierce Heat winning over DSSP8ntball 5-3
and Velocity Wrecking Crew over Chicago Wiseguys 5-1. This would
send each victor team into the winner's bracket in the finals round to
battle for first and second place and the losing teams into the loser's
bracket to shoot for third and fourth place.

Five man competition wrapped up its
preliminary round and sent 32 of the 75 D4 teams into a second round of
games with 3 games each for the teams, playing in 8 divisions, the top
two teams from each division then moved on to the Ocho round where they
joined the D3 Ocho final teams. All 16 of the D3 Ocho final teams
battled out with three games, then took the top 8 teams on to the Quarterfinals.

During the Ocho finals D3 5 Man team,
No Limit performed nearly flawlessly with a 294 score, they were joined
by PG Style, Storm, Wyldside, Inertia, SI Factory, Boom and Overhead

D4 Ochofinals were led by Fatal Effect
with 296 points, then in second was Total Karnage Kids. Joining the
two top contenders in the Quarterfinals would be Air Assault JR, 100 proof
paintball, Texas Select, Pursuit, Vivid and WindyCity Kidz with 192 points
in 8th place.

Quarterfinals for the 5 man teams would
cull down from 8 teams to the top 4 to compete in the final matches of
the tournament. In D3 Wyldside took top billing with 290 points.
Joining them would be Storm with 288 points, Boom with 200 and PG Style
with 122. The D4 teams saw higher scores during the quarters with
100 proof paintball at 288 points, Vivid with 202, Total Karnage Kids at
200 and Texas Select at 194. In both cases of the 5 man competition,
the teams leading the pack out of the Ocho finals failed to perform during
the quarterfinals, sending them home early. The 14 original D2 five
man teams were culled down to just 8 teams where they fought it out during
the quarterfinals. On top after their three games as Rogue with 294
points, Team RNT with 198, Pintura Fresca with 194 and Dark Army with 188.

Semifinals for the five man teams would
take the top team and the bottom ranked performers from the quarterfinal
round to battle for the privilege of first billing in the finals round.
For D4, this pitted Texas Select against 100 proof paintball. Texas
Select won the first two games with 98 points each making the third game
unnecessary, putting them in the running for first place. 100 proof
paintball would play for third or fourth place against the loser of the
matchup between Total Karnage Kids and Vivid. The Kids and Vivid
played their first match, the game going to TKK, but the second game was
won by Vivid, then the last match was a max for the Kids, sending Vivid
into the loser's bracket with 100 proof and TKK into the winner's bracket
against Texas Select.

Semifinals for the D3 teams saw Wyldside
on top over PG Style after two games. Boom then took on Storm with
a trade in the first two games, 92-16 going to each team, then Boom came
back to win the third game, putting them up against Wyldside for first
and second place, and PG Style against Storm for the third and fourth place
spots.

Semifinals for the D2 five man teams
saw Dark Army on top over Rogue in three games, sending them on to the
winner's bracket to compete with Team RNT after their win over Pintura
Fresca.

Finals matches began on Sunday afternoon
with the X-Ball teams taking the field. D3 third and fourth place
was determined by DSSP8ntball winning over Chicago Wiseguys 5-1.
D2 loser's bracket was fielded by Fierce and Warped Army. The Army
lost their game against Fierce, resulting in a third place win for Fierce
with a 7-3 score. The D1 loser's bracket was Damage D1 over TX Justice
League 5-1.

The winning bracket of the X-Ball matches
saw D3's Velocity Wrecking Crew taking down Fierce Heat with a 5-3 score,
securing them the win for Chicago. D2 winner's bracket saw Cross-Eyed
Paintball winning over Raiden 6-5 for first place, Raiden in second.
RNT Allstarz beat out Vicious for first place with a 5-3 game, giving them
their third first place win in D1 this season.

Five man finals were held with the D4
loser's bracket being filled by 100 proof paintball and Vivid. After
three games 100 proof paintball won the day for third place, Vivid in fourth.
Total Karnage Kids took the lead with a max and then another win over Texas
Select for first place, Texas Select in second. D3 five man finals
saw PG Style triumphing over Storm for third and fourth place respectively.
Boom and Wyldside battled for first place, with Boom taking two of the
three games, giving them the podium shot and first place. D2 had
Team RNT and Dark Army going for the first place win, Team RNT pulled it
out with two 98 wins, giving Dark Army second place Rogue took third
after two solid wins over Pintura Fresca who took fourth.

After five days of competition, the
PSP would begin preparations for the fourth event of the season in Greensburg,
Pennsylvania in mid-August.